This is a family friendly blog for those who love dolls and toys. The blog is a forum for all apsects of doll history, doll collecting, and doll making. It is the first step in creating a nonprofit doll center to educate the public about the historical role that dolls, the oldest human cultural artifact, play in the the lives of people all over the world. All excerpts are the author's intellectual property and may not be reproduced in any means withoutreceiving permission from the author.

My husband led me to a fantastic Victorian doll house yesterday. After we chatted with a great couple who built it, we came home with VanV...

Sand Baby Castaways

Courtesy, Glenda Rolle the Artist

PM Dolls

Leo Moss

German Dolls

Formerly, Aunt Len's.

Beecher Doll

Graces cover of Lenon Hoyte Auction, Aunt Len's

Foreign Dolls

Pryor Collection

Pryor Doll Collection

In Dec. 1959 Natl. Geographic

Great Book

Edward VI's Doll, 1540

Formerly, Helen Moe Doll Museum

Rare "frozen metal doll" Mannikin Pis

Courtesy, eBay Eilleen, Finder 27

Vintage Japanese Doll Joins our Museum Family

Courtesy, Southern Soldier Antiques

Rare Frozen Charlotte Type

A Pageant of Dolls

By Lesley Gordon, 1948

Hong Kong Lili

Barbie Stamp

An early Vintage Barbie

Bild Lili

Zinc Bodied Rohmer

Caused a suit between Mme. Rohmer and Mlle. Huret

Metal Dydee Baby

17th century Lead Dolls

England

Doll Shaped Mold

cf Dolls and Puppets by von Boehn

Metal Head

Probably Minerva

Black Metal Head

Russian Nesting Doll Charm

18 inch Metal Head

Mlle Bleuette

14th C Munich Clay Doll

Used as Bapitsmal Gifts

Halopeau artists rendering

Toy maker

Restored dolls

L to R: All vinyl mid-60s, Ragggedy Ann, handmade, new arms and clothes, Barbie Type as Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia. Black Felt Dress, white silk flowers and ribbons. She is in one piece, but with a swivel waist that does snap in two!

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Mattel sent out an email about the new dolls, including four new versions of Ken that I blogged about for Ruby Lane.com. Even more body types and diverse looks are available, making Barbie truly the "Everydoll" of our time.

Once again, dolls appear on the old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Last night, they did a sketch from the early 90s parodying home video shows. A baby doll was bounced around in a sketch about a baby swept out a window. The doll reappeared baked in a birthday cake her mother took home. NO babies were harmed, of course. Last week the show from January 22, 1985 featured a detailed miniature room with bisque doll house dolls as part of a skit featuring The Mighty Carson Art Players.

Example from Neff photo collection of girls with dolls and black dolls. Photo by E. Tsagaris

Black dolls have played a role in our history from the first
example created centuries ago.Dolls
tell the story of the people who created them, and are portraits of their
makers in many ways.Black dolls speak
of courage, culture, art, and history that have shaped human endeavors for
millennia.Ancient Venus figures with
corn-rowed hair, Egyptian Paddle dolls and Ushabti, ancient Iron figures from Benin,
Nubian dolls and others testify tothis
legacy of black doll making.

In California
during the late 80s, the Rev. C. Laverne Williams, a lovely lady and gracious
hostess, held a show devoted to black doll artists called The Holiday Festival
of Black Dolls. R. John Wright, Magge Head Kane, Floyd Bell, Carry Lisle, Leo Moss, Shindana Toys, so many other gifted artists
created them, too. The former Me Dolls site had amazing images of all kinds of
dolls of color and ethnicity. O. Winfrey supposedly had a big collection, and
the late Patrick Kelly, designer, had over 6000. His logo was a tiny black
celluloid baby doll, sometimes made into a pin.I once passed over a great T-shirt printed with one of these. It was for
sale at Nordstrom’s.Silly me.

Folk dolls made by slaves are valuable pieces of Americana
that tell of historical struggle and injustice, andblack dolls made of nuts, wood, nipples,
cloth, and other materials are the subject of museums and exhibits all their
own.Janet Pagter Johl wrote of them and
pictured them in her books, and those picture here are from a current exhibit of black dolls at The Figge Art
Museum, Davenport, IA.They
are from the D. Neff
Collection, and are part of an exhibit from the MingeiMuseum.
I was lucky enough to meet the talented woman who collected the dolls on
exhibit, and also to attend the opening and reception.

Examples that have become scarce include black sock dolls
that fit over antique bottles.Examples
of these and other folk dolls exist in Wendy Lavitt’s American Folk Dolls, Myla Perkins’ Black Dolls series, and Carl
Fox’s The Doll.

Black Kewpie, aka “Hottentots”, are the quintessential doll
for February; the angelic Kewpies, originally drawn by Rose O’Neill, sport blue
wings and a red heart, and the black examples are iconic as well.The RJW “Hottentot” Kewpie was release in
2001, and is made of felt and jointed.The doll, of course, sports the famous red Kewpie heart, and is just
adorable!

Lenci and Norah Wellings made exceptional black dolls of
felt and velvet, and Madame Alexander has provided amazing and detailed examples
over the years, some very rare models.

Another iconic black doll, the Golliwog, was inspired, in
part, by a performer who was sketched by Toulouse Lautrec, “Chocolat.”Originally born in Brazil, Chocolat was a star during
the Moulin Rouge Era, and Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”, Part of The
Children’s Suite, was a nod to Chocolat the entertainer.Robertson’s Jellies has long been associated
with its Golliwog log and ins and other memorabilia it has sold.They appear in Florence K. Upton’s “Two Dutch
Dolls” in a Golliwog, and I’ve seen examples from Germany
(Steiff), The United States, England,
and South Africa.

Black memorabilia dolls and figures are popularly collected
and include Mammy dolls made of different materials, often sold as souvenirs in
New Orleans and
Elsewhere. Other Mammy dolls are portraits of actress Hattie McDaniel, who
played Mammy in Gone with The Wind.Miss
McDaniel was the first African American actress to win the Oscar for her role,
but she was also an avid doll collector and a pen pal of my friend, doll author
and artist R. Lane Herron.

Dolls from Africa and the Caribbean
illustrate the diverse nature and origin of dolls of color.Africa has
a rich history of dolls, idols, and masks that influenced Picasso and The
Cubists.These dolls are made of wood,
iron, other metals, cloth, beeswax, husks, all sorts of natural materials, and
beads.An interesting exercise is to
assemble pictures or examples of Dolls and statues made in African countries by
African artists and group them next to a selection of black dolls form other
parts of the world.The variety of the
African dolls is astounding, but often, the dolls from other parts of the world
are simply painted black or brown.It is
an interesting study of how the African people see themselves, and how some
other parts of the world see them.

Yet, black or brown bisque dolls, and antique wooden dolls
are also things of beauty. An ethnic papier mache doll attributed to Bru of the
Rosalie Whyel collection and represents a tribal woman wearing leather and
beads.She could be the dignified woman
associated with Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness.”Bru dolls and French fashion dolls of brown bisque are astounding, as
are automatons like Zula the Snake Charmer.Zula once fetched a quarter of a million dollars at auction, and a light
skinned, biracial Jumeau exhibition doll has been valued at $250,000. Black Frozen Charlottes and China heads have a charm all their
own and make an amazing collection.Black wax dolls and Crèche figures of the Three Kings often provide
unusual additions to doll collections.Puppets and marionettes are also terrific finds.For more of these, review Mary Hillier’s
books Wax Dolls, Automata, Dolls and Doll
Makers, and Chloe Prestonand the Peek-A-Boos.Also, check out Who won Second Place
at Omaha about Lenon Hoyte’s museum, Aunt
Len’s, once in Harlem.

These dolls alone tell an amazing story.Museums are devoted to them, and books are
written about them. Like all dolls, they deserve to be curated, collected, and
preserved as historical artifacts of humanity itself.